


Cupid's Chokehold

by taeyongseo



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Dance Team Captain Ten, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nerd Kun, Party Host Jackson Wang, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29867877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeyongseo/pseuds/taeyongseo
Summary: Rumour has it that to make it onto SMU's dance team, you have to get into the good graces of not only the team captain Ten Lee, but also his best friend. Unaware of this, Kun wonders why he's suddenly surrounded by freshmen bending over backwards to do him favours. Ten is not amused.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Comments: 78
Kudos: 601





	Cupid's Chokehold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andnowforyaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/gifts).



> happy birthday, miss yaya! i think as a writer it's very important to have people that you look up to, that inspire you and motivate you with the thought of how great they are at the thing we love. you are that for me. thank you. <3

It starts out innocently enough.

After waiting in line at the good coffee shop on campus for nearly half an hour, Kun is relieved when he’s finally up and gets to tell the unimpressed looking barista his order. She punches it in with a sigh and nothing much more. He doesn’t blame her for her lack of enthusiasm. The coffeeshop is brimming with people needing a refresher of caffeine before afternoon classes and he’s pretty sure at least two people before him cried when their order wasn’t done fast enough.

Kun’s not a crier and so he manages a smile when she returns with his drink.

That’s when it happens. Just as he pulls out his card to pay, this hunk of a freshman jumps in, swiping his card for Kun’s order before Kun has the chance.

Kun blinks as the payment goes through and he finds himself holding onto a cup of over-priced cold brew that this random stranger just paid for.

Without asking.

“Uhm,” Kun says.

The other guy beams at him. “Hi!”

“Hi?” Kun tilts his head to the side, trying to figure out whether he’s suffering from a random bout of prosopagnosia that has made him forget this freshman’s face, but no, he’s pretty sure they _are_ strangers. He would have remembered someone with such a sunny demeanour.

“I’m Lucas,” the random stranger introduces himself. “L-U-C-A-S. You’re welcome.” Lucas beams, motioning at the coffee and Kun blinks, his manners overriding his confusion and he reflexively ducks his head. “Thank you.”

His brain finally cooperates with his mouth and he’s about to ask “ _Why did you do that for me?”_ when Lucas claps him on the shoulder, once more points at himself spelling out his name and then skips out of the coffee shop as if he didn’t just pay for Kun’s coffee without them actually knowing each other.

Kun looks after him until a subtle cough from beside him tells him he’s holding up the line and so he holds onto his coffee and hurries to his Statistics lecture.

*

“I think a freshman tried to flirt with me today.”

Ten, where he has been scrolling through Netflix on Kun’s laptop for the past half an hour, looks up. “What?”

“What?” Kun gives back, grinning. Not because it’s particularly funny what happened to him, but because Ten looks cute where he’s sprawled out on Kun’s bed looking like a disgruntled, short-sighted cat with his ruffled hair, over-sized hoodie and specs that Kun had to bully him into admitting he needed. “Is that so unthinkable?”

Ten sets his laptop down. “No.” He clears his throat. “Of course not. I tell you you’re handsome all the time, don’t I? Did you get their number?”

Kun shakes his head. “He was gone way too quickly for that. Didn’t even ask for my name, he just made sure I remembered his.”

“That’s weird.” Ten scrunches up his nose. More cat antics.

Kun smiles as he flops down on the mattress next to him. “It was really weird. He just swooped in when I was about to pay for my coffee and then dipped. I mean, who does that?”

“Wait!” Ten gasps. “Maybe he was one of those cult recruiters that prey on foreigners! He saw you standing there and thought ‘oh, yes, this guy looks like he’s susceptible to free movie nights with a side of indoctrination!’”

Kun frowns. “I hope not.” He looks down at himself. “Do I look like I’d fall for that?”

Kun knows that he’s objectively a nerd and looks the part with his sweater vests that make both Ten and Taeyong wail with desperation every time they go out, but he’s not gullible. He doesn’t think.

He gasps when Ten stays suspiciously silent in response. “Ten!”

Ten starts laughing. In retaliation, Kun wrestles him until Ten taps out with a wheeze, going boneless in Kun’s arms. Kun uses the opportunity to brush his fingers through Ten’s hair to look for cat ears. He’s done that regularly for the past six years that he and Ten have been best friends and, like always, he finds none, but Ten lets out a pleased hum so his effort is not all in vain.

“Don’t worry, Kun-Kun,” Ten clings willingly to him, “I’d break you out of any cult. No one gets to pester you into doing their bidding except for me.”

Kun can live with that so he lets himself relax, Ten rolling off of him to fetch the laptop. They settle against his headboard, thighs pressed together to balance the laptop as they watch the show Ten picked.

It’s funny and even though Ten falls asleep on his shoulder halfway through, Kun thinks his night is going pretty good.

*

It doesn’t stop there.

Kun is standing in the library, one arm full of books while he tries to find his campus ID at the bottom of his backpack with the other when it happens again.

“Let me help you!” Helpful hands take the books from his arms, safely placing them on top of the copy machine.

“Oh!” Kun manages to get the darn card out from under his laptop case and shoots the stranger a polite smile as he slides his backpack back onto his back. “Well, thank you!”

The boy, another freshman judging by his baby face, beams at him. “No problem!”

“Did you want to use the copy machine?” Kun has almost an entire book to digitalise so he’s fully ready to let the boy use the machine before him.

“Ah, no! Just wanted to help you. I’m Hendery! You’re Kun, right?”

Kun nods before he realises that it’s weird that Hendery knows his name even though they’ve never spoken before this moment. He frowns. “Wait—”

“Awesome! I’m super glad to help you. Again, I’m Hendery. That’s H-E-N-D-E-R-Y. See you around!”

Hendery is gone quicker than Kun can get the rest of his sentence out and that’s how he finds himself standing alone on the library floor, campus ID in hand and a very weird feeling in his gut that something is up he isn’t aware of.

He shakes it off and when he’s leaving the library two hours later, he’s almost forgotten about it.

Except that it keeps happening.

In the span of the next two weeks, it seems that he can’t go anywhere without being handed things or there being people who want to do things for him that he’s fully capable of doing himself.

A select group of freshmen in the tutorial he teaches every Wednesday morning nearly beat themselves up in order to hold the door for him whenever he comes and goes and one of them, an ever-smiling boy named Jaemin, insists on carrying the projector Kun used in one of his lessons all the way to his TA’s office for him.

Kun has to switch coffee shops because it seems that he can’t go to his usual joint anymore without some zealous freshman waiting in the fake bushes near the register to jump out when it’s Kun’s turn to pay. When he goes to the library, boys and girls with quivering smiles and hands full of snacks start appearing at his table.

Kun always gets a name, but never an explanation as to why the freshman in question is doing this.

Why all of them are doing this.

He doesn’t get it.

“I really don’t get it,” he complains to Doyoung, Jaehyun and Sicheng when he sets down his tray at their lunch table in the campus cafeteria. “The first time it happened, I thought the guy might have developed a misguided crush on me, but by now I’m almost inclined to believe some is trying to make fun of me.”

Doyoung frowns. “What makes you think that?”

“First off, all of them are freshmen! I’m a senior so they shouldn’t even know of my existence! Which means that there must be some rumour created about me during freshie week that I’m not aware of that makes them do this?”

Jaehyun hums in contemplation. “I mean if that’s the case it can’t be anything bad because they are nice to you, right?”

“Right, but that still doesn’t make sense if they don’t ask me for anything in return! Even the people in my tutorial haven’t tried to get me to talk to the prof in their favour.”

“Have you asked any of them why they are doing this?” Sicheng asks, popping the lid of his soda can.

“I tried. I’m just met with pure deflection.”

Doyoung frowns, missing the hand sneaking onto his tray to steal his pudding. “But they must say something?”

“Their name, mostly. They always make sure to introduce themselves before they run off.”

“Mysterious,” Jaehyun says as he peels the foil off his newly acquired dessert. 

“It’s just weird.” Kun hunches in on himself. “Who would care this much?”

Sicheng’s expression darkens at that and Kun can see the lecture about self-deprecating comments bubble up his friend’s throat. He’s saved by the vibrating of his phone. He fishes it out of his pocket, a smile chasing the frown off his face as he accepts the call.

“Hello?”

“Will you come pick me up in about twenty minutes?” Ten’s voice sounds distracted and the heavy thumping bass in the background tells Kun that Ten’s still in the middle of practice.

He chances a glance at his wrist watch. “Yeah, I can make that.”

“Awesome. You can just come in, like always.”

Kun nods, even though Ten can’t see, and he’s about to hang up when Ten adds, “Oh, and don’t get coffee on the way!”

Kun frowns. “What? Why?”

There’s a pause. “They found a really nasty cockroach infection at the coffee shop.”

“What?” Kun gapes.

His friends look at him curiously, but Kun waves them off. He thinks about the coffee he got himself just this morning, even if he didn’t manage to pay for it himself. Another freshman named Xiaojun jumped in. The drink had seemed fine to him at the time, but thinking about a roach potentially having added some extra protein to his drink makes his stomach turn.

“Yeah, it’s, uh, super nasty. So don’t go there anymore!”

Kun shudders. “Yeah, I might just invest into my own coffee machine.”

“We can go coffee machine shopping after your Physics lecture tomorrow,” Ten’s voice becomes even more faint as he changes the music in the studio. “Okay, I got to go now. Bye, bye!”

“Bye, bye,” Kun echoes and then the line goes dead. 

When he looks up, he finds that Sicheng has turned back to his curry. Doyoung looks unperturbed where he’s spooning the last bit of his pudding into his mouth. Jaehyun, with chocolate covering the front of his shirt, sits next to him pouting.

Kun snorts and hurries to scarf down his own lunch.

*

The Performance Arts building is just as familiar to Kun as the Science building. He’s here often enough that no one even bats an eye when he walks in, even though he’s the only one not clad in sweatpants and active wear like the students that actually have a right to be here.

He says goodbye to Sicheng in front of his ballet class and takes the elevator up to the third floor by himself. As captain of the university dance team, Ten practically lives up there. The team’s practice room is at the very back of the hallway that itself is divided by three fire safety doors.

Kun has made it through the second one when the third is held open for him. It takes him a moment, but then he recognises the sunny smile beaming down at him. “Oh, Lucas!”

“Hello!” Lucas cheers. “You remember me!”

Kun laughs inadvertently. “Sure do. Thank you again for the coffee.”

Lucas ducks his head and Kun sees this as his opportunity to finally ask him why he made the effort for Kun in the first place when the door at the end of the hallway opens. Bass-heavy music spills out of the room along with Ten. He’s sweat-soaked, his fringe glued to his forehead but a brilliant smile appears on his face when he spots Kun.

It falters a little when his eyes fall onto Lucas, who’s still holding the door open for Kun. Kun ducks under Lucas’ outstretched arm so he can walk towards Ten, who meets him halfway.

“Hey,” Ten greets him, but his eyes remain glued to Lucas. “What’s up?”

“Oh, this is Lucas. We were just—” Kun stops short when he finds that Lucas has run off. Literally. He winces as he watches Lucas crash into the last of the fire-safety doors before he pulls instead of pushes against the handle and disappears in the stairway.

“Uhm, nevermind, I guess.” Kun feels a little bemused, but shakes it off. “How was practice?”

“Good.” Ten’s eyes are still on the spot where Lucas just disappeared before he blinks and then the smile returns to his features. He throws an arm around Kun’s shoulder and leads him into the practice room. “Come and look at the new choreography I’m working on!”

*

Kun is a Science major to please his parents. There was a time he grappled with it, debated whether that was really what he wanted to dedicate himself to for the next sixty years of his life, but he’s good at it— _really_ good at it—and Science is nice to him. Things either make sense or they don’t. There’s comfort in every question demanding hard proof and if there is none, then there is no need to look further. He doesn’t hold it against himself or his parents that he chose this path.

But.

If Kun could have chosen freely, he would have chosen to study music. He looked into when he was applying for universities. His major would have been Music Production with a focus on Composition. For some time, he mourned that it wasn’t.

But.

He still has Ten. Ten did choose dance and Kun gets to watch him. Ten makes sense even though Kun can’t decipher him into numbers and probability levels. Ten is the art in his life.

And Kun is very happy with his life.

*

Contrary to what one might expect, Kun really enjoys college parties. He likes the thick, loud atmosphere and the way he gets to mingle with people he’s too busy to see during the week. He even enjoys it when Yuta yells into his ear for half an hour about the new anime he’s been binging, the two of them squeezed onto the loveseat in Jackson Wang’s living room.

It’s a house-warming party to celebrate Jackson and his roommates moving into a house off-campus, finally free from the clutches of their old, shitty landlord.

Kun is enjoying himself. He sips his drink and nods as Yuta describes how totally awesome the villain of the anime is. Kun makes a mental note to check it out. While he himself prefers live-action stuff, Ten likes that kind of stuff.

As if summoned, Ten chooses that moment to emerge from the crowd that fills the make-shift dance floor and throws himself on top of him. Two beers in, Kun only laughs while Yuta curses at Ten’s knee missing his groin by mere centimetres.

“Hi,” Ten yells at them, eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed. “You should dance!”

“Mhm?” Kun places a hand on the small of Ten’s back to prevent him from sliding onto the floor. “Is it fun?”

“Very much so!”

Yuta watches them for a moment before he downs his blue solo cup and gets up. “I guess that’s my cue. You got him?”

Kun nods over Ten’s shoulder. “I got him.”

Ten’s already gone boneless on top of him. Kun’s got him.

Yuta lingers for only a moment longer before he disappears. As another dance major, he has no problem falling into the crowd. Kun doesn’t feel too envious that Yuta gets to dance. He doesn’t mind babysitting Ten. He’s quite comfortable where he is.

He lets Ten koala him for about half an hour before he lifts them both to their feet and navigates Ten into the kitchen. After a tall glass of water and a handful of gummi worms Kun snatched from the buffet table, Ten looks alive again.

They’re halfway to the dance floor when they’re pounced on by Taeyong, who redirects them towards the basement. “That’s where the real fun is!” Taeyong assures them.

The real fun, as it turns out, is a hap-hazardly set up game of truth or dare. The last time Kun played that was in high school, but he’s not above some late night, drunken shenanigans with his friends. He settles into the circle next to Ten and watches as Johnny, the game-master judging by the glittery party hat strapped to his head, spins the bottle.

It lands on Sicheng, who chooses dare and ends up taking a body shot out of Yuta’s pierced belly button. Kun watches the bottle spin and spin again, more preoccupied with Ten’s warm body pressed against his side than the lewd questions and lewder dares his friends give each other.

He’s still laughing about Taeyong’s re-enactment of his first kiss when the bottle lands on him.

“Truth or dare?” Taeyong asks him.

“Truth,” Kun answers without hesitation. He’s not about to make out with anyone in Jackson Wang’s basement. 

Taeyong’s eyes obtain a sprinkle of glee that make him regret his decision. “Do you like anyone in this room? Like, _romantically?”_

The circle ‘ooohs’ at the last word, there’s giggles and drunken laughter and Kun doesn’t break eye contact with Taeyong when he says, “No.”

*

Kun has a secret.

It’s a secret he’s held onto for six years. That’s a long time to hold onto anything, Kun is well aware, but he doesn’t mind carrying his secret with him. On some days, it’s light as a feather. On some days, it weighs on him enough that he struggles to get out of bed that day.

Most of the time, it weighs on him only a little. Only causes him to stutter when there’s no one to hear his aborted confession. Only causes his heart to seize when there’s no one to see him falter.

Whenever it feels like he might suffocate, he goes on a run.

This morning, there’s a freshman girl named Yeri waiting for him in front of his dorm building when he comes back. He takes the water bottle she offers him without too much of a fuss, used to the process by now, and patiently listens as she spells out her name for him before she leaves.

He empties the bottle on the way to his room and throws it in the trash before heading straight into the bathroom for a shower.

With scalding water sluicing down his back, it’s a bit easier to think. Easier to take stock of himself and his emotions and find that he’s fine. He’s happy. He’s got good grades, a job lined up after graduation and the best friends in the world.

When he steps out of the shower, his phone is ringing. He picks up and puts the phone on speaker as he saunters into his room.

“Hi, Ten.”

“Are you cool with avocado on your breakfast bagel?” No hello, as always.

“Whatever you picked is fine. I trust you, Tennie.”

Ten lets out a pleased purr. “Very good, Kunnie. I’ll see you in a few.”

Kun smiles. “See you in a few.”

Kun has a secret.

He lied during truth or dare.

*

That evening, he decides to call his cousin.

Yangyang picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Kun greets, thumbing through the cook book he bought on his way home from class. “Do you know whether there’s a rumour going around about me on campus? Among the freshmen?”

Kun has figured that Yangyang, as a freshman himself, might know.

“Huh?” The ceasing of gunfire on the other end tells Kun that Yangyang has paused his video game for him. It’s touching. “No, not that that I know of. Why?”

Kun explains what’s been going on. Yangyang listens uncharacteristically patiently. When Kun has finished explaining everything, Yangyang tells him to “hold on a minute.”

The line goes dead and Kun sits on his bed scrolling through his social media for twenty minutes until Yangyang calls him again. He’s laughing hysterically, which can mean either good or very, very terrible things.

“What?” he asks, uncharacteristically impatiently. “Did you find out what’s going on?”

“I did.” Yangyang’s still giggling.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. I was bribed, but trust me, Cousin, it’s nothing bad.”

Kun hopes so. He’s still burning with curiosity, but he knows that if it were actually anything serious, Yangyang would tell him. So he resigns himself to his fate with a sigh. “Well, thank you anyways.”

“You’re welcome. And greet Ten from me!”

“Ten’s not even here!” Kun wants to protest, but Yangyang has already hung up on him.

*

On Friday night, two weeks into the new semester, the shutters of the third floor conference room in the Performance Arts building are drawn shut and even Kun, who doesn’t even go here, tastes fear as he steps into the elevator. It’s eleven p.m. which means the building is deserted.

He’s the last to arrive when he walks into the conference room. Ten is standing on the little podest in the front, hooking up his laptop to the projector. Taeyong and Yuta are sitting on pillows _on_ the conference table. Yuta offers him Skittles when Kun climbs on the table to join them.

“Okay,” Ten starts. He insists on using the lecture microphone even though there’s only four of them. “First official meeting of the dance team leader board, let’s get going! I see that we’re all present so I’m marking that down. And, of course, we’ve also got honorary member Kun. Hi, Kun!”

Kun waves at him.

“Where’s our special greeting?” Yuta complains.

“Kun has best friend privilege,” Ten tells him through the microphone.

Taeyong giggles.

“All right,” Ten continues, “today on the agenda we’ve got some organisational stuff to go through, like the design of our stage outfits for the upcoming competitions. Yong?"

“I already sent you the link to the pinterest board I made.” 

“Awesome! Thank you, Yong.”

Pleased, Taeyong pops a gummi worm into his mouth.

“But of course,” Ten’s grin turns devilish, “We’re heathens so we should start with the best thing first.” He clicks a button on the small remote he’s holding and the screen behind him comes to life. It shows a roster of headshots, the stiff-looking ones with the awkward smile that Ten must have taken from the school register. “It’s fresh meat picking season! We’ve got five spots to fill on the team and auditions are through, so if anyone has a favourite, call ‘em out!”

While Yuta and Taeyong start calling out names at the same time, Kun is still too busy gaping at the roster. He knows these people. No, he doesn’t _know_ them but he sure knows their names. Smiling down at him is SMU’s roster of freshmen dance team pledges, conveniently made up of the same roster of people that have been hounding him the past couple of weeks.

Kun finds them all, Lucas and Hendery and Jaemin and Xiaojun and Yeri and—

“Kun?” He blinks when Ten’s worried face appears in front of him. “Is everything all right?”

Kun feels like his brain is melting. “Those are—it’s them!” Helplessly, he points at the screen. “The freshmen that have been hounding me! With niceties! It’s them!”

Ten turns to look at the screen while Yuta asks, “Wait, what did I miss?”

“Are you sure?” Ten asks.

Kun nods. “I’m sure. I just don’t get why would they do that.”

“Probably because they know what kind of an influence you have on Ten,” Taeyong suggests.

“But—” No, he can’t argue with that. “But wouldn’t it make more sense if they had tried to impress Ten directly?”

“Kissing ass like that is frowned upon, especially because it would imply that Ten plays favourites. But you’re not on the team and yet you get a say. It’s quite brilliant, actually,” Yuta muses.

Ten still hasn’t turned around. Kun scoots to the edge of the table to touch his shoulder. “Tennie?”

Ten shudders before he turns around. The smile on his face is brittle but Kun doesn’t comment on it. He’ll ask once they’re back at the dorm, just the two of them. Until then, Ten has a job to do and so Kun settles back onto his seat pillow and offers unqualified commentary whenever he’s asked.

It’s only Yuta and Taeyong that ask him.

*

It’s past midnight by the time they leave the Performance Arts building and because the night is pleasantly warm, they decide to walk.

Kun enjoys the comfortable silence between him and Ten, the way their arms brush occasionally. Ten is quiet, but that’s not something Kun can’t deal with.

“You did a really good job today, Ten,” he offers because Ten did, even if his excitement to select new team members drastically diminished after Kun told him why he was familiar with his pledges. “You’re not mad at them for trying to woo me, are you? It’s just dumb freshmen shenanigans.” 

Ten shakes his head. “I’m not mad. Well, at least not at them.”

Kun’s heart seizes. “At me, then?”

Ten gapes at him in shock. “What? No, of course not! You’re—you’re good, Kun. Perfect. Thank you for coming tonight.”

“Of course I came. You know I’d do anything for you.” It’s meant to be a light-hearted jab to get them back on track, but it comes out a little too earnest and the laugh Ten gives him is bitter.

Kun doesn’t like it, doesn’t like that he feels like he doesn’t know what Ten is thinking. That Ten is upset but not telling him why. Frowning, he takes Ten’s hand.

“Will you please tell me what’s up?”

Ten shakes his head and Kun feels frustration build in his chest. “Come on, Tennie, you don’t have to mope all by yourself.”

“Leave it.”

“You know you can tell me—”

“I said leave it, Kun!”

Kun flinches and he wants to step away but the grip Ten has on his hand is too tight. So he ducks his head, “Sorry.”

He can tell that Ten is sorry, too. His mouth opens but there are no words coming over his lips. Kun tries for a light-hearted chuckle to dissipate the tension and gets them moving again.

They walk in silence. Kun is too afraid to break it. Tomorrow, he thinks. They can talk about it tomorrow when it’s not so late.

“Kun?”

Despite his thought, Kun wants to sob with relief when Ten speaks up first.

“Yes?” he manages.

“You know I love you right?”

Kun smiles, his heart fluttering with relief. “Sure, Tennie. I love you too.”

“No.”

He’s brought to a halt by their joint hands. In the light of the street lamp above, Ten’s eyes seem to hold the entire universe. “You know that I love you, right? _I love you._ I thought I was hiding it well, but apparently even the entire freshman year at this school knows, so I figure you must know too.”

“Ten—”

“And I get it, okay?” Where he was silent for so long, Ten is rushing out the words now. “I heard what you said during truth or dare. You don’t like me back, but I need you to know that it’s different for me. I like you as more than my best friend. I love you.”

Kun feels his throat draw tight, his eyes prickling as he stands there on the pavement with their hands intertwined and Ten looking at him as if Kun holds his entire universe.

As if Kun is the one oblivious while Ten is secretly, pathetically in love with him.

“Six years,” he manages eventually.

Ten’s brows draw together in confusion. “What?”

“That’s how long _I_ have loved _you._ I’ve been in love with you for six years, Tennie. Since that very first day you dropped your lunch on my laptop and cried while also hitting me for so inconveniently placing my laptop where you would spill your food. The first day we met and every day since, I’ve loved you.”

“You—”

“Yes.” Kun laughs. It sounds hysterical, even to his own ears. “Fucking hell, Ten!”

Ten pounces on him. Kun catches him easily, holds onto him while Ten’s arms wrap around his neck and Ten’s legs wrap around his waist. Ten wails into his neck and Kun barely keeps them from toppling to the ground, he’s laughing so hard.

“Do you have any idea how many times I tried to tell you and then chickened out?”

“You tell me.” Kun shakes his head. “I couldn’t imagine a world in which you’d see me like that.”

“Kun?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s no insect infestation at your favourite coffee shop. I lied because I didn’t want you to go there anymore if people thought they could hit on you.”

Kun laughs. “I’m really relieved to hear that. I missed the blueberry muffins.”

“The one with the walnut on top?”

“Yeah.”

He’s kissed then, time moving in slow motion and fast forward at the same time as Ten kisses him over and over, kisses him until they’re both breathless and giggling and Kun has to set Ten down because otherwise he might collapse.

He doesn’t let go of Ten, though. Ten, who loves him _back._ He keeps their hands intertwined as they walk to rest of the way to Kun’s dorm, as they snuggle up together in bed and he gets another kiss before Ten falls asleep on his chest. It’s not much different from what they’d usually do, yet everything feels different now. Better.

Kun is weightless, tethered to the world by Ten’s solid weight on top of his chest and the knowledge that tomorrow, he gets to hear Ten tell him he loves him all over again.

Kun can’t wait.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please leave me kudos and a comment! \\(^_^)/  
>   
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/taeyongseo) | [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/taeyongseo)  
>   
> 


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